Posts by bombastic bob

Woke Linus Torvalds rolls his first 4.20, mulls Linux 5.0 effort for 2019

Re: It's called humor.

Prick

That's Mr. Prick.

Re: Bring back the old Linus

"'RTFM' is a good way to answer people asking beginner questions.

especially on IRC. Well, teach a man to fish, right???

noob: I need help with [thing]

me: what kind of help?

noob: [something clueless]

me: did you read the man page? 'man thing'

noob: no, but I still need help

me: google is your friend. learn to use it.

etc.

just pointing out the obvious, again. you're welcome. Too many of THESE conversations and I just start with a link to the documentation after _I_ google it, and say so after the link.

me: [web URL] - I found this by googl'ing "the query", it was the 4th entry on the first page

[a subtler way of saying RTFM, while *still* being "helpful"]

/me points out that inserting "duck duck go" or "bing" in place of 'google' is also acceptable - heh

Linus is NOT being 'passive-aggressive' FYI

"new passive aggressive Linus"

FYI this is not 'passive-aggressive' to tone down the anger in communications.

A passive-aggressive person is like a protester that hangs limp when the police carry him off. It makes it HARDER for the police. He's resisting arrest, NOT being violent, yet STILL engaging in 'aggressive' behavior against the police. That's "passive-aggressive".

I've seen TRUE passive-aggressives in action, and it's IRRITATING and self-centered. Passive-aggressives find things that YOU do that they don't like, then complain about them to others ALL of the time, to exert pressure on YOU. They object to everything you do, trying to sound "scientific" or "knowledgeable" in order to make YOU look bad. They schmooze behind the scenes and get things done OUTSIDE of your approval or consultation. They often don't cooperate with your tasks, forcing YOU to fall behind deadlines. If possible they'll try to get you fired with false claims (boo hoo hoo he hurt my feelings!). When faced with the reality of their opposition, which may really be rooted in incompetence or personal issues, they often rage-quit or become openly aggressive about it [backed into a corner]. Without saying it too much, YES, they *ARE* manipulative people, and you can tell who they are by THAT alone.

It's also considered to be a psychological disorder.

Re: just mewling quims.

All of these UNNECESSARY "nice-ities" - this just reminds me of 'The Wolf' from Pulp Fiction...

"Pretty please. With sugar on it. Clean the #$%'ing car!"

(he was being 'curt' because he was trying to get things done, and time was limited and basically the reason he was there to take charge in the FIRST place, did not have time for 'pleasantries' etc.)

this reminds me of that ONE Mythbusters episode...

[it's more therapeutic to voice your, uh, FRUSTRATION, via profanity and colo[u]rful metaphors]

BUNNY KITTEN MOTHER-PUPPIES! <-- heh

(just doesn't work as well)

European Union divided over tax on digital tech giants as some member states refuse free money

Re: VAT

"angry headlines in the tabloids about how some billion-dollar business is paying $4.93 in tax."

that's correct. they do that. And they do that LEGALLY by exploiting all of the loopholes, etc..

YOU would, too, if you could. Right? I know of NO altruistic people who would just bend over and pay out all of that money to a gummint when there's a legal way to get around doing it.

the laws of unintended consequences

per-packet taxes mean fewer packets

per-transaction taxes mean fewer transactions

Using a country's IP address blocks to levy taxes means increased VPN usage (as mentioned above) to avoid taxation.

Do you _REALLY_ want "a tollbooth" on 'teh intarwebs' ? I don't.

And what effect would DRIVING COMPANIES AWAY from your country [not being a 'tax haven' any more] have on INCOME TAXES from employees that WORK there? [this could be moot if an entity is simply a shell company working as a pure tax shelter, which would have few or no local employees].

But yeah, if you drive them AWAY, your tax revenue will be ZERO. Understandably, nobody's gonna just BEND OVER and TAKE IT when gummints impose taxes and regulations.

unintended consequences are OFTEN the direct result. And politicians NEVER "get it".

We don' need no stinkin' bounties: VirtualBox guest-to-host escape zero-day lands at GitHub

when Sun bought VirtualBox the first thing I saw was increased support over what qemu and kqemu had given you [what virtualbox was originally based on]. I saw devotion to NON-windows operating systems and I was happy. I think Sun was behind multi-core support in virtualbox, which I thought was AWESOME.

So far I'm not seeing "bad things" while Oracle has it, although you might say that the lack of urgent response to zero-days and months-long delays in fixing might be Oracle's bureaucracy...

oh, and that dreaded "just get the newest version" so-called FIX that was also mentioned in another post... this is open source and patches _ARE_ possible, given a pull request that can be adapted to earlier (stable) releases [as needed].

I happen to like virtualbox

I happen to like virtualbox, but I don't open up my VMs to 3rd parties. In cases where it _MIGHT_ happen, I can at least make sure root has a *strong* password/phrase.

I'll look into the 'paravirtualization' workaround anyway. Years ago I had trouble setting up thing like that, so new VMs aren't using "that", but since then it's probably working correctly so I'll re-visit.

In the mean time, vbox "NAT" lacks IPv6 support... so maybe "it's time" to look at another way to do networking.

Bill Gates joined on stage by jar of poop as he confesses deep love for talking about toilets

open defecation "the norm" in a society

unfortunately, we cannot "do for them" what they are unable/unwilling to "do for themselves" without executing some kind of pressure upon them, like foreigners refusing to go to cities (or employ people) where public 'un-sanitation' is considered "normal".

I'm not sure anyone is so altruistic as to subscribe to that notion. However, if it DID become a 'human rights' issue of some kind, at the U.N. for example, it would have to side with those who are adversely affected by poor/nonexistent public sanitation.

In the 1st world, trash pickup and sewers and sewage treatment are considered 'normal'. The black plague was one of the reasons why this is so. Preventing plagues was a huge motivation behind not dumping bedpans or chamber pots into the street, and requiring the use of public toilets instead of gutters.

Then again, with things being as they are (and getting a bit worse, I'd say), places like San Francisco are looking more like the 3rd world every day...

Anyway, attitudes have to change. Just like it is with some countries still violating civil rights based on sex, religion, etc. we can't fix THEIR problems until THEY are willing to fix THEIR problems. [it's possible to pressure them to change their minds, but that's a slow and politically charged process sometimes, especially when that country makes your electronic toys or provides you with oil or raw materials]

Re: Windows FE (Fecal Edition)

maybe it would be an improvement over the so-called "low water flush" toilets. So instead of flushing ONCE [older designs], by using LESS water per flush, you have to flush it 3 times to "get it all"... (or listen to it running constantly when the 'bulk' has too much mass to get past the bendy part because it 'uses less water').

Either that, or it'll be "flush it 5 times" like a reboot process during "up"grades.

what's next, 'slurping' up data about what we've been eating, and if "it floats" it's "you're eating too much meat/fast-food" and activists will now picket your house?

The potential assault on privacy and freedom (and marketing it or using it against you politically) is too much for Micro-shaft to ignore!

Re: "Bill Gates joined on stage by jar of poop"

(re: Mr Hanky shoutout)

Hi-dy Ho!

/me can't find 'poo' icon...

Re: Cue the toilet humour... whoops, too late!

I once wrote a trashcan desktop icon application that was a toilet (back in the windows 3.x days).

Nowadays, we can expect that "windows everywhere" will soon turn EVERY desktopcomputer into a toilet. After all, it's the new "lowest common denominator" platform upon which UWP must "look and feel" the same, everywhere, because, Win-10-nic.

now, how will that 2D FLATSO toilet interface work again?

Macs to Linux fans: Stop right there, Penguinista scum, that's not macOS. Go on, git outta here

Re: SecureBoot Bites Again

new name needed:

*EVIL* *BOOT*

"secure" boot is *EVIL*

Just plain *EVIL*. It's designed to LOCK OUT COMPETITION.

It needs ANTI-TRUST action, PRONTO, if users can NOT unlock it.

Intel peddles latest Xeon CPUs – E-series and 48-core Cascade Lake AP – to soothe epyc mygrayne

Re: 6 cores vs 32 ??

good luck getting a WINDOWS OS to properly leverage all of those cores [at least for a desktop/workstation].

Now, with virtualization, pretty easily done with any decent work load.

I'd like one of those 'threadripper' CPUs on my desktop workstation, though. I have need of "that many cores" and I'd use FreeBSD and/or Linux...

Solid state of fear: Euro boffins bust open SSD, Bitlocker encryption (it's really, really dumb)

*FACEPALM*

see icon

Re: Full Disk Encryption Not Good For SSD

an SSD-friendly encrypted file system would encrypt file names, path names, etc. from the index, but would not encrypt the block allocation, pointers, indexes, etc. so as to minimize the impact of encryption on re-writes. That way the data would still be encrypted, along with the names, but would not have to re-encrypt large parts of the file system because you changed something.

it would still be possible to determine "this is a large file" and try to decrypt it the hard way, but with a strong enough key... good luck. maybe you could look for file headers as a 'crib' of some kind, but a properly designed algorithm would prevent THAT from working, too.

Re: "should not rely solely on hardware encryption"

POSIX systems have a cert mechanism for ssh that might work for mounting an encrypted file system using a FUSE file system, as one example...

if it does not already exist, it should.

/me could create one if I wanted to... but do I _NEED_ to?

Re: The issue is changing the password...

let's say the encryption key is derived from a math operation on a hash of the password/passphrase and the stored key on the disk. If you change the password, you'd need to re-calculate the stored key. If it's possible to do this from the actual key, that might at least address THIS problem. But a truly secure system might derive the actual key with a 1-way operation (like matrix multiply or similar).

in any case these things _COULD_ be solved in ways that make the system secure, and "not what THEY did".

US draft bill moots locking up execs who lie about privacy violations

Re: No "right to be forgotten"

no 'right to be forgotten' - this is an EXCELLENT point!

If GDPR-like legislation were to be made in the USA, it would _NEED_ a "right to be forgotten" requirement on any 'opt-in' or 'not-opt-out' data collection, including for those who do NOT subscribe to a service [such as anonymous users of google, fa[e]ceb[ook,itch] and Tw[a,i]tter and anything else that has a scripty icon on a typical web site].

This actually *kinda* makes my point that the proposed legislation was intended to ENRICH L[aw]YERS and pander to specific anti-corporation voters, and that's about it.

Real protection: not a bit.

The existing FTC requirements on banks disclosing selling your info to 3rd parties should be sufficient, I think, plus a "forget me" process that's simple for web sites.

Re: I voted for him.

"more than few corporate shills freedom-loving, sensible people who believe in less government are reading El Reg today."

Fixed It For Ya.

"soon the Republicans will start to legislate these issues"

well I'll have to disagree with you on this one. The current position of the Republican party is SMALLER government and FEWER (better) regulations. Making more is probably NOT the answer, anyway.

That being said, the existing Federal Trade Commission laws may be enough on their own, if properly applied. FTC applies to banking and privacy already. Extending that to intarweb traffic wouldn't be all that difficult, and would provide the _same_ kinds of protection we get against banks selling our information to 3rd parties without our permission.

I suspect that punishing corporations in order to make headlines and pander to left-leaning voters isn't the primary focus of the Republican party (yeah no duh). Anti-trust _HAS_ been important to Republicans, since Teddy Roosevelt, as well as a "fair playing field" for competing businesses. So it'll get done, eventually. But it's not an emergency to rush to legislation with it, not like some of the other issues that have been getting handled over the last 2 years [like recovering the economy, fixing foreign policy, and "draining the swamp"].

Lawyer contributors

Lawyer's contributing to this guy... this is the part that concerns me the most... because my first instinct when looking at this is that "only the L[aw]Yers will profit from it". ACLU-types are NOT working in the best interest of America (as with Demo[n,c][R,r]ats] in general. As such, I mis-trust them instinctively.

And a "do not track" web site will (most likely) be as ineffective as the "do not call list" has been. As much as I like the idea, it's not enforced well enough to stop the problem. I can already see web site operators scoffing at it and making 'token' lookups of "you" on the list, while grossly violating it >90% of the time, and maybe even using it as a 'verified' list of VALID e-mails and identities!!!

And the addition of "teeth" into a "do not track" seems WAY too invasive to companies that might be doing things legitimately [let's say you subscribe to a service that tracks your purchases online in order to comp you with discounts...]. Just hit them where the board members care about it, a combination of their company reputation along with some financial "incentives", like INDIVIDUAL "loser pay" lawsuits they're constantly forced to settle if they engage in bad behavior like that. [it helped with GWX didn't it?]

And they REALLY care about privacy, they should ONLY allow "opt in". "Opt out" doesn't work.

Slabs, huh, what are they are good for? Er, not quite absolutely nothing

Re: But ... but ... they're going to replace consoles and PCs

Don't forget...

IT! WAS! THIS! KIND! OF! THINKING! THAT! BROUGHT! US! WINDOWS! "APE" (8)! and WIN-10-NIC!

You remember - one OS and one UI for EVERY platform, right? It runs on your phone, it runs on your tablet, it runs on your PC, it runs on your GAME CONSOLE, blah blah blah-die blah-blah. And looks like a phone or slab display, because THAT was "the future" for computing.

And then it was "Universal APPS" and the "Microsoft Store" !!! Because you did NOT learn your lesson.

You CHANGED the UI for the OS to match that RIDICULOUS MISCONCEPTION, and the REST of us BEAR THE CONSEQUENCES of it.

(Yeah Ballmer and Sat-Nad, that's looking _REALLY_ _SMART_ right now, isn't it???)

And, thanks for all of the ruined marketing opportunities because of Windows "Ape" and Win-10-nic!!! The entire PC hardware and software industry oughta be at your door with PITCHFORKS and TORCHES over this!!!

Re: You can only bloat so much

"Once you reach a certain point there is really no need for an upgrade."

The entire PC+phone+slab market is *HORRIBLY* misunderstood by WAY too many.

To me, it's simple:

a) phone is a necessity, and everyone already has one (more or less). "new, shiny" needs to be compelling for people to get another one.

b) slab is a luxury, and everyone who wants one already has one. "new, shiny" needs to be even MORE compelling for people to want a new one

c) PC is a necessity, and 10 year old machines with windows 7 on them appear BETTER than new machines with Win-10-nic on them. If a hardware change [new hard drive, more RAM] isn't going to do it, a new PC might, if Win-10-nic doesn't become the reason NOT to get a new one.

OK market "experts", put THAT in your pipes and smoke it [instead of the wacky weed of "wish" and "hope" you've obviously been using up until now...]

icon: a big facepalm for all of those who haven't seen the obvious

Nikola Tesla's greatest challenge: He could measure electricity but not stupidity

Re: The name 'Tesla' has been hijacked

worst car name evar was a GM concept car called "Impact" (also another electric car). Later (when in production) it was re-named 'EV-1' [probably because they realized the implications of 'impact'].

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1

considering its eventual fate, the original name was _SO_ appropriate, foreshadowing, etc..

Google logins make JavaScript mandatory, Huawei China spy shock, Mac malware, Iran gets new Stuxnet, and more

Re: So not, Google

and if I _DO_ use google, it's with javascript TURNED OFF. I don't need their SLURP or TRACKING, either.

Whatever clueless DIM BULB up at Google headquarters *FELT* that the world *MUST* bow to their demands, and enable scripting _JUST_ for _THEM_, deserves the backlash. And that includes *ANYTHING* that uses 'google metrics' or any OTHER such CRAP.

If for some reason I _MUST_ use a web site that has this *GOOGLE* *SCRIPT* *SLURPY/TRACKY* *CRAP* in it [after sending a nasty complaint letter] I _ONLY_ do so in a browser that _ERASES_ _ALL_ _HISTORY_ _AND_ _COOKIES_ _AND_ _OFFLINE_ _DATA_ after I close the window.

'googleanalytics' - who needs that again?

In memoriam: See you in Valhalla, Skype Classic. Version 8 can never replace you

*EX-TER-MIN-ATE*

The daleks at Micro-shaft have completed their process. Embrace. Extend. Extinguish. *EX-TER-MIN-ATE*

Now Europe wants a four-million-quid AI-powered lie detector at border checkpoints

Re: What are they going to train it with?

how about "the caravans" currently traversing Mexico?

just have it focus on the key words and tricky phrases they're taught by the coyote's and "advocate" lawyers. Some good "lie" examples there, at any rate.

troll icon, because, obvious

"..and the anal probe, fecal sample, urine sample, saliva sample, blood sample, and one of your kidneys..."

you forgot one.

This revolution will not be televised – but it will be sanctioned: Googlers walk out over 'sex pest' executive scandals

"Feeling Googly"

/me starts humming the '59th street bridge' with a slight lyrics change...

na-na na-naaah nah nah nah... Feeling Googly

(I should be careful with the word 'feel' in there, and Google won't pay me when they use it for advertisement)

yes, Google discriminates - remember last year?

"only discriminates on opportunity according to how able you are."

except for AFFIRMATIVE ACTION 'discrimination', such as what James Damore pointed out a year or so ago... (and was apparently FIRED for doing it)

Fox News Article

Re: Googlers walk out over 'sex pest' executive scandals

From the article: "male executives accused of sexual harassment."

Has anybody ELSE asked: How many of these 'accused male executives' were actually GUILTY of what they were accused of? (enough to fire them for it, at any rate)

The million dollar golden parachutes were probably CHEAPER than the potential legal costs involved, regardless of actual guilt, from ALL perspectives.

US Republicans bash UK for tech tax plan

Re: International norms

"all the big companies move their profits to tax havens and pay very little tax anywhere in the world."

Wouldn't ANYONE who COULD do this, do this?

Yeah I'll just VOLUNTARILY bend over and take it, enjoy it, etc. because taxes are used SO wisely by governments. Hell, just write a check for EVERY SPARE BIT OF CURRENCY... [yeah NOT happening]

There are basically two alternative philosophies on this one:

a) punish corporations for acting in their own interests,

- or -

b) make it so EVERYONE can benefit by lowering tax rates across the board, and no need to shop for a 'tax haven' to prevent losing a big chunk of your money

just sayin' - gummints get too much of our money anyway. let THEM budget and cut back for once...

Welcome back, 'ping of death', it has been... a few months. Now it's Apple's turn to do the patching

so 90's

just HOW long has this bug been in the iKernel ?

We (may) now know the real reason for that IBM takeover. A distraction for Red Hat to axe KDE

Re: Yep

I think the debate on the UI is more of "why did you CHANGE it into *THAT* it when I LIKED IT THE WAY IT WAS???" And THEN, make it so I CAN NOT GET THE OLD ONE ANY MORE!!!

Yeah, same thing done to Windows, too, after Win7.

How soon people forgot how Windows 3.0 sold Windows as a UI _BECAUSE_ it was 3D skeuomorphic as well as being intuitive, unlike Windows 1.x and 2.x before it.

NOW everything's going BACK to Windows 1.x and 2.x because *IDIOTS* are jumping on that bandwagon with NO good reason, and TAKING! AWAY! ALTERNATIVES!!!

WHAT the FEEL, right???

Re: But I LIKE KDE!

past-tense on the LIKE - those FLATSO looking 'Plasma' screenshots NAUSEATE me. It's exactly why I would have choosen "the OLD KDE" over so-called "modern" GUIs.

https://www.kde.org/screenshots/

as the version gets OLDER, the skeuomorphism INCREASES. What the *FEEL* are they *THINKING* ???

OK if they're "feeling" they're NOT thinking, and that's the point...

the last screenshot I saw of "new, shiny" KDE looked NOTHING like what I was accustomed to seeing, all 2D and FLATSO and "Gnome 3-ish"... like they drank the 2D FLATSO coolaid or something.

I'll stick with Mate, which should still be "installable" on RH, or something lighter like lxde. No need for 2D FLAT "looks like Chrome/Australis/Win-10-nic" instead of something I _liked_ from 5+ years ago, almost BRAG-worthy even.

"Up"-grading. SOOOO overrated!!!

If KDE had _NOT_ swallowed the FLATSO+Wayland 2-fisted GAGGER (aka 'plasma'), maybe it'd be "different enough" that people would WANT it more!!!

(you really DO have to make your product "different enough" when everybody ELSE is heading over the cliff, to keep your customers from doing a 'Mate' or 'Devuan', ya know??? Otherwise, your "new, shiny obsessed" out of touch "developers" who *FEEL* as if it's "OUR turn, now" to make DESKTOP COMPUTERS look like PHONE SCREENS will *RUIN* *EVERYTHING*!!! [whoops, too late]

'Privacy is a human right': Big cheese Sat-Nad lays out Microsoft's stall at Future Decoded

Re: "Privacy is a human right"

the epitome of Irony, when Micro-shaft (inventors of Win-10-nic) says that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony

"what appears, on the surface, to be the case, differs radically from what is actually the case. "

the robot devil would be proud!

'He must be stopped': Missouri candidate's children tell voters he's basically an asshat

Re: words or actions.

you can't really be 'kicked out of the party'. unfortunately he won a primary. having the rest of the party denounce or condemn you is about as much as they can do.

I wish wacky Demo[n,c][R,r]ats would get "similar coverage" with THEIR wackies. or maybe it's a testament to the Republican party, in general, that when some racist [etc.] claims to be Republican, and maybe even wins a primary, not only does the rest of the party denounce/condemn etc., it becomes "a news item" because it's so INFREQUENT.

The press won't "cover" for a Republican. For a Demo[n,c][R,r]at, it seems they DO.

I'm glad I'm not in that guy's district. Moral dillema: vote for a) racist Republican, b) Demo[n,c[[R,r]at...

[it's bad enough I have to pick between 2 'D' senators, one being Feinstein, and in my opinion, she's the lesser of the two evils, and I'll have to hold my nose and choke back the bile on that choice, and maybe lose some sleep over it, because a NON-vote is half a vote for 'the other one']

Boffins have fabricated microscopic sci-fi tractor beams for real

Re: Carbon nanotubes?

interesting idea, but would it be an economically practical/viable process?

Re: using beams of light to manipulate atoms.

right, with momentum and velocity = speed of light, you can calculate an effective mass or 'rest mass' using the e = m * c^2 formula when the energy of the photon [related to frequency] is known

photons are like a 5th state of matter, one step beyond plasma, matter converted into pure energy. a 6th state would be the 'atomic particle mush' you'd find within a black hole

US government charges two Chinese spies over jet engine blueprint theft

Re: Not the first time

very little (if any) response, most likely.

'Most Enabled Nation' status.

Microsoft claims Office 364 back to business as usual. Oh no it isn't, say suffering sysadmins

canary group

to Micro-shaft, that's the 'home' users; i.e. pay EXTRA to NOT be 'a canary'

Re: Active reproduction?!?!

new product idea: Micro-shaft Lube

Apple's launch confirms one thing: It's determined to kill off the laptop for iPads

Re: My point is the finger point

the problem here is that when you measure "user base" according to "new item sales", instead of "what they're using", you get a distorted picture of what the customers want and use.

(the article gets it right, though, from what I read)

much like the PC market, yeah. Slabs seem to be improving enough to sustain the 'new, shiny' demand. For now. But not so much for desktop/laptop sales. People hang onto what they have.

Unsure why you can't log into Office 365? So is Microsoft

Re: Have they tried turning it off and on again?

THIS one really needs 30 seconds in the microwave

Re: Come El Reg we know you want to say it...

"It has gone a bit TITSUP"

oooh you can't say that, because it implies something similar to 'NIPpleS'

/me runs and hides, now

50 ways to leave your lover, but four to sniff browser history

run NoScript

problem solved